We're heading into the home stretch before Information On Demand (you have registered, right?), so I'm sharing a few of my favorite blog posts to help frame the discussions at the premier conference for IT and business professionals. Feel free to bookmark, read and add to your own social media reading list. Also, feel free to comment on or disagree with these posts right here, as each is bound to raise a hackle or two.

1. GOOD Magazine: The Data Issue: GOOD calls itself an "integrated media platform for people who want to live well and do good" and "a company and community for the people, businesses, and NGOs moving the world forward." Its latest issue looks at areas of our lives that aren't typically associated with (or driven by) data and finds some surprising insights. Yes, data is everywhere and facts can be comforting, but when it comes to our own lives, it's the questions we ask ourselves that lead to true wisdom. As illustrator Andrew Kuo writes: When we search the numbers, we find reflections of ourselves, glimmers of the world we live in and the lives we lead. We may learn immense amounts from this data, but make no mistake: Our search is what gives it meaning. In The Information Arms Race,William Wheeler explores the increasingly effective use of microtargeting in political campaigns, as well as the repercussions for democratic debate. The issue is also chock full of of cheeky infographics and gets meta on data with a chart entitled "Which kinds of people like which charts?"

2. Numerati Baseball = Rope-a-dope, by Stephen Baker: Is winning boring? I suppose entertaining the fans is a secondary concern when you're buried beneath "fifty feet of crap," as Oakland As' manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) observes in the movie trailer below. Still, Baker (author of The Numerati, chronicler of the Watson story and a baseball fan himself) considers the implications of the analytical approach on the length of the average baseball game and its effect on the effect on viewer patience: I love baseball, and I defend it stoutly against all those who complain that it's boring. But anyone who can sit through a Yankees-Red Sox game without a fast-forward button deserves some kind of medal ... For someone who is not passionate about the Yankees or the Red Sox, it was torturous. The game dragged on for 4 hours and 21 minutes. What's your take on taking a lot more walks? Moneyball pioneer Billy Beane and Moneyball author Michael Lewis will share share their take on the analytical approach to wining an unfair game when they share the stage as our keynote speakers.

3. Desert Island Datasets:Over on The Guardian's Datablog, Charles Arthur plays with the "Desert Island Album" concept to datasets by asking, "Which set of open data would you like to get from the UK government so as to have the maximum impact on the open data movement?" Arthur's goal is twofold: first, to protect and advance the open data movement overall, and second, to focus on those datasets that can make the biggest improvement in public policy: I recently met some people inside government who are trying to push the open data idea, of getting anonymised, publicly-collected data out there for developers to be able to build applications which will have both financial and societal benefits. It is taken seriously at the top levels of government; they aren't just paying it lip service. The problem though is that there's only so much time available to anyone to push the agenda through.

Bonus feature: IOD Housekeeping Details

A few details to keep in mind as you prep your week and pack your bags:

Don't forget to sign up for the IOD Social Media Aggregator: This site is your proverbial one-stop shop for real-time tweets, pictures, videos and blog posts from your fellow attendees and those playing along at home.

Excited about going? Tell all your friends! Our LinkedIn and Facebook pages are great ways to let your friends and colleagues know you're headed to the biggest conference in the IBM Software galaxy and even make some valuable connections before you head down to Vegas

Follow us on Twitter: Real-time event updates, opinion and excitement in 140 characters or less. Use #iod11 to join in the fun.

When I think about the capabilities of our IBM Cognos FSR solution it
reminds me a lot of Aesop’s fable about the Ant and the Grasshopper.
It’s about preparing today for more challenging times. If you don’t know
this fable I’ve included it below as it’s so short it’s not worth
paraphrasing. The story goes like this:

When
I think about the capabilities of our IBM Cognos FSR solution it
reminds me a lot of Aesop’s fable about the Ant and the Grasshopper.
It’s about preparing today for more challenging times. If you don’t know
this fable I’ve included it below as it’s so short it’s not worth
paraphrasing. The story goes like this:

One summer’s day, a merry Grasshopper was dancing, singing and
playing his violin with all his heart. He saw an Ant passing by, bearing
along with great toil a wheatear to store for the winter.
“Come and sing with me instead of working so hard”, said the Grasshopper “Let’s have fun together.”
“I must store food for the winter”, said the Ant, “and I advise you to
do the same.”“Don’t worry about winter, it’s still very far away”, said
the
Grasshopper, laughing at him. But the Ant wouldn’t listen and continued
his toil.
When the winter came, the starving Grasshopper went to the Ant’s house and humbly begged for something to eat.If you had listened to my advice in the summer you would not now be in
need,” said the Ant. “I’m afraid you will have to go supperless to bed,”
and he closed the door.

Get your house in order so that when the onslaught of work comes you
can focus on the right things. IBM Cognos FSR is one of those solutions
that helps with that “preparation” and the FSR solution can grow with
those changing regulatory, compliance, and performance reporting
requirements. I spoke with our Product
Marketing Director, Dan O’Brien, about IBM Cognos FSR and how he
explains the capabilities to our customer base. He said the hardest part
is explaining how transformational this software is for finance
departments. It’s almost like “selling cars to people still
using a horse-and-carriage. This solution is so far advanced that a lot
of customers find it hard to believe that it can really work that
seamlessly.” No buggy whips required. I’ve seen the technology in action
and its pretty incredible.

Look, we all know that today’s hyper kinetic, ingloriously
competitive business climate is calling for organizations to react and
respond more ably than ever before while at the same time these
organizations are being asked to comply with increased regulatory,
compliance, and external reporting requirements showing no signs of
abatement.

Analytically-driven organizations are not wasting time while these
ever-changing, always demanding disclosure management-related processes
spiral out of control. At risk is more time robbed by these lower value
activities from the real analytical and predictive research finance
needs to be doing that’s the most value added. Also, we know the
outcome of reporting late or reporting the wrong numbers. Why not take a
look at IBM Cognos FSR???

Top performing companies have found a way to manage these additional
regulatory and external reporting requirements through the use of IBM
Cognos FSR. This solution has raised the bar in not only managing the
disclosure process, including XBRL capabilities, but this solution also
has assisted organizations with their performance reporting needs too.
This solution can automate and manage the complex tasks of collecting,
editing and reporting various performance and financial data for
finance, treasury, reconciliations, portfolio and asset management,
audit, and risk management, etc.

Reporting now requires structured and unstructured information which
is highly susceptible to errors, especially when handled manually to
edit, review, and publish that data into narrative management reports.
So get out ahead of these manual intensive, error-prone processes and
leveraging an integrated solution that can automate and effectively
manage these tasks because the pace of change for what’s being expect of
the office of finance and it isn’t slowing.

I encourage you to take a look at IBM Cognos FSR and see what it can
do for your organization because there’s only more changes coming. Be
prepared for it with IBM Cognos FSR.

“The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the
enemy’s not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the
chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made
our position unassailable.” – Sun Tzu

The ugly truth of this phrase rings true in the case of battles that
never occurred in the American Civil War. For those unfamiliar with
this war the American Civil War occurred during the mid-1800′s from
1861-1865 on U.S. soil. It was fought between the North (Union States)
and the South (Confederate States) and was primarily triggered by the
election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. Its definitive starting point
occurred on April 12, 1861 at 4:30am when the first Confederate shot
hurtled into Fort Sumter, a Union stronghold, sitting at the entrance to
the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina.

The conflict continued until a final peace was made at Appomattox
Court House on April 9, 1865 between Union General Ulysses S. Grant and Confederate
General Robert E. Lee. At the outset of the war, the North was better
organized, better equipped with a much larger conscription of troops not
to mention having far more resources at its disposal than its southern
counterpart. Despite the South’s opening victory at Fort Sumter, a
largely symbolic victory for the South, many predicted the North would
prevail swiftly and decisively. In 1861, President Lincoln was
resolutely confident that a string of Union victories as they marched
their way from Washington, D.C. to the seizure of the Confederate
capital of Richmond, Virginia would be enough of a blow to the Rebels
that the Confederates would be forced to give a total surrender. The
key for this surrender to be given though was that the Northern Army
needed to move quickly from their current position in Washington, D.C.
down to Richmond to dismantle the South’s capital and central command
post: without the shepherd (Richmond) the sheep (Southerners) would lack
direction forcing an end to the war. All pointed to an assured victory
for the North. Or so it seemed. “On to Richmond!” was the northern
cry. Lincoln gave the job of leading the Union Army to General George
B. McClellan. McClellan was revered for his many talents. Smart,
pedigreed, and more than capable, McClellan had the trust of all
Northerners. March to Richmond, plant the Union Flag and McClellan was
assured to be a hero. As I mentioned earlier, no battle never fought
was ever won. Despite overwhelming odds in his favor and indisputable
evidence that his army far outnumbered the Southerners, General
McClellan repeatedly hesitated to march his troops into battle against
the Confederate army which stood between him and his ultimate objective,
Richmond. The Confederate capital at the time of his hesitations was
literally within McClellan’s sights but he never made it there because
he failed to act. Instead, after a few defensive squirmishes with
Southern forces and despite multiple requests from Lincoln to fight,
McClellan all-too-eagerly retreated hat-in-hand back to Washington, D.C.
giving up ground to the South’s General Robert E. Lee who made an
aggressive march northward to Antietam into Northern territory. What a
turnabout. I wonder if this is what prompted Lincoln to later say, “I
can make more generals, but horses cost money.” Obviously, Abe had to
mind his dollars and cents now given that this would be a long and
protracted war.

My point isn’t to denigrate the character of General McClellan. Not
at all. He did many exceptional things in his life of which he should
be proud. What I mean to do is to illustrate an example where sitting
idle, even when there’s overwhelming evidence to support taking that
action, is a missed opportunity. We’ve all done this in one way or
another. We wait to act. It happens to the best of us. A lot of times
taking action on something means change from the norm and, regardless
of the ultimate benefits, we can resist that change because, well, it’s
change. These reasons alone are what cause a lot of people to hit their
personal pause button and not do anything.

Let’s
look at this from a different perspective. Have you ever had your
master bathroom redone? If so, then you’ll know what I’m talking about.
Tons of benefits here. Maybe you’d be getting a new jacuzzi tub, a
nice steam shower and even more cabinet space not to mention your own
sink this time around… Still, most resist a project like this because
it’ll mean losing your bathroom for quite some time before it’s ready
for prime time. Big benefits to upgrading your bathroom but there’s
certainly going to be some inconveniences (read change) before it’s
usable.

No matter how necessary the project is whether it’s redoing your
master bathroom or marching regiments of 100,000 men into enemy
territory don’t let the forces of hesitation get the best of you. Yes,
there will be initial adjustment pains as you go through the process but
keep your eye on the ultimate prize – and, when applicable, make sure
you’re keeping everyone else’s eye on the prize too.

If you see measurable benefits justifying an investment in something,
try to see the benefits beyond the initial ramp up time and just go for
it.

(Shameless plug) If you’re thinking of deploying Business Analytics
solutions to enable critical business processes at a minimum take stock
of what the possibilities are. Look at your processes such as the
following:

…take stock of what the best practices are in one or two of these
areas and see how your company measures up. Perhaps this is an
opportunity to drive a planning & analytics optimization initiative
across finance and the rest of the organization (Check out IBM Cognos TM1). Or, maybe you want to look at automating your financial statement reporting practices (Check out IBM Cognos FSR), or even review your risk management practices (Check out IBM OpenPages).
Look at the processes first. See what’s preventing these processes
from being at a best practice level. There could be many reasons for
this. After you’ve done this take a look at the enabling solutions that
are out there that address these processes. Whatever it is don’t
hesitate because there might be some additional work in the
investigation phase or in the technology implementation phase because,
once it’s up and running, you’ll be glad you did.

The measurable benefits in adopting these solutions, such as
automation, embedded controls, workflow management, minimal
administration, etc. which allows for higher frequency forecasting,
stronger analytic capabilities, access to real-time reporting, effective
scenario analytics, best-in-class predictive analytic capabilities,
rigorous statutory reporting & risk management enablement, etc.,with
you championing the project can be your path to success while the
organization benefits from the bottom line ROI. Everybody wins. You
can become the figurehead for it too because you acted on it.

Yes,
IBM Cognos TM1 is like a Swiss Army knife – it has capabilities to do a
lot of different things extremely well. One of the practices it’s
being utilized for with incredible results is an emerging, but no so
well understood, practice entitled profitability modeling and
optimization. The power of IBM Cognos TM1 is the primary reason this
practice has emerged. Companies adopting IBM Cognos TM1 as the
technology of choice for this practice is the primary reason they’re
thriving moving from ‘also rans’ to industry leaders. Still, this post
is less about IBM Cognos TM1 and more about the process, Profitability
Modeling & Optimization.

When talking about profitability modeling & optimization it’s
more illustrative to start with the ever-important strategic element of
price. It’s that set amount that can make or break a product or service
or even the company’s acceptance by the marketplace. Price, of course,
is most often set by what the market is willing to pay for this product
or service. A lot of factors can go into your pricing strategy
including things like the brand equity and image of the product or
service (Think Tiffany’s), expected sales volumes (Think economies of
scale), competitive factors (Only game in town?), or if it’s a new
category being created. Of course, we know that companies profit by
selling this product or service at a margin greater than its cost.
Then, a profit is turned.

Now, what you do with those profits is then up to the company to
decide. Do you reinvest those profits? Most do. If so, how do you
allocate them across the business for the most profitable return?
Maybe you even want to release some of them to shareholders via
dividends? What about making acquisitions? These are important
decisions to make based on what the future needs of the business are.
This is a good problem to have.

Enter Profitability & Optimization.

To sustain competitiveness in the marketplace organizations must be able to model their profitability to maximize profits and optimize the components to profitability that incur costs.
Most companies are performing some form of profitability and
optimization activities everyday. The BIG difference is that some are
much better at it than others. Why is this? What separates them from
the others? It comes down to the best-in-class organizations investing
in their people, the related processes, and a capable technology.

Ask yourself the following questions:

What degree of insight do you have into product, customer, and market profitability?

How timely and reliable is this information?

Is the information in one system or do you have to make phone calls,
send emails, query multiple databases and compile it together into a
spreadsheet to make sense of it and even then it’s incomplete?

Can you perform ad hoc analysis on that information to answer
questions about the data to complete a thought process or run a
scenario?

Are you able to quickly understand anomalies/outliers in historic data?

Are you able to quickly explore cause and effect?

Do you understand the drivers that both impact and are impacted by price & cost?

It’s critical to know that every area of the business is looking at
some element of profitability. Running scenarios, what if, and
profitability analysis with a 360-degree viewpoint of the data is the
lifeblood of value-added analysis for making smarter decisions which, if
done effectively, translates into better corporate performance.
Without better insight and understanding of the information derived from
profitability modeling and optimization, business users are forced to
go on their gut and/or out of date information — or, worse, they’re
waiting until they do get the information they need before they can
act…tick, tick, tick. Time is money.

If you and the rest of the workforce don’t have this information at
your fingertips don’t fret because you’re not alone. However, things are
changing. Companies today are investing more and more into this
practice area as technology has caught up in a way that’s allowing for
massive data volumes to be sliced-and-diced in seconds for this very
purpose.

Now is the time to act. The technology is there so I’d ask why isn’t
your organization there too. Hustle up. I know a lot of companies
that are doing this practice very well – and some that aren’t
unfortunately. They’re the ones looking to leverage IBM Cognos TM1 to
put them on the path to better PM&O.

If you want to know more about this subject feel free to email me to discuss further.

You'll see some of these recent acquisitions next month if you're heading down to Information On Demand next month. It boasts the biggest EXPO in the IBM Software galaxy and ample opportunities to meet product and solution experts, so not only will you discover the value that these acquisitions can bring to your organizations, you'll see how that value is augmented and extended within a broader IBM software solution. On a Smarter Planet, the smartest companies will win. So whether you're in retail, banking, education or simply want to learn more about analytics I'd urge you to do two things: read the report and register now.

THINKing about Leadership, for a Smarter Planet

IBM Chairman and CEO Sam Palmisano opened this week's IBM THINK Forum in New York by calling for a new type of leadership. Palmisano noted that although competition drives progress and innovation, it's not sufficient in an interconnected world. In this new model, Palmisano said, "the wild west of competition needs to be complemented and tempered by far more collaboration across old boundaries: across academic disciplines, industries, nations; even amongst our most fierce competitors. Palmisano also commented on the lessons IBM has learned over its first century, lessons that will enable it to survive into the next:

The Forum drew many influential - not to mention thoughtful - attendees including Sir Howard Stringer, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President of Sony Corporation, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and His Excellency Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, President of Mexico. Rob Enderle of Forbes wrote about the conference here, and you can see more videos here.

In addition to the Forum, IBM has also installed the THINK Exhibit, a visual exploration of making the world work better, in Lincoln Center in New York. The exhibit takes visitors on a journey through a series of experiences, including:

The Data Wall: Striking patterns undulating on a 123-foot digital wall, visualizing live data streaming from the city’s nearby systems, like traffic details, untapped solar energy, water leakage through the city’s main aqueduct, air quality and credit card transactions.

Interactive Experiences: After the film, the 40 media panels switch to interactive touch screens, becoming a forest of discovery. Visitors can explore the various ways science and technology have improved the world, and the
tools and methods used to drive progress, showcasing inspiring examples of systemic progress around the world.

The Icons of Progress: IBM’s top 100 milestones, including the PC, the first computerized airline reservation system and the Apollo Missions. Through graphics and stories, the icons tell the story of big risks, lessons learned and discoveries that have transformed the way we work and live.

The Exhibit is open to the public from September 23 to October 23, and smaller scale exhibits are installed at 14 IBM locations around the world, including IOD.

Back in the '80s,The Frantics were Canada's answer to Monty Python. One of their recurring bits involved Paul Chato (the geeky one) inventing a new video game. Like Kramer on Seinfeld, he'd burst into the room unannounced and shout, 'Hey guys, it's ready!' Upon hearing the news, the other guys would excitedly jump around the room in a stop-motion homage to 'Neighbors,' the famous 1952 NFB short film by Norman McLaren.

For you, the SMA makes it easier than ever to share in the excitement of Information On Demand. It pulls in conference
tweets, blog posts and photos and presents them on a single page. So, if you're using any or all of the
conference tags: #iod11, #baforum, #imforum or #IBMECM, they'll show up here. The SMA
will also provide live streaming video of the morning general sessions, plus executive keynotes and interviews from the EXPO floor courtesy of Scott and Todd.

Because The Frantics were popular in the 80s, Paul's games looked like the ones you played on your Atari 2600. Because this is 2011, the IOD SMA looks a little better:
Smarter Software means smarter aggregators

What's more, the SMA scans all that content to build real-time tag clouds of trending topics and highlights the conversation leaders who are tweeting and blogging up a storm. Last year, that honor went to raving IBM Cognos 10 fan Cedric deVroey. The last time I checked this year, there was quite the duel shaping up between Christoph Papenfuss and Fraser Anderson. Now that the SMA is out there for the world to enjoy, no doubt we'll see perspectives from outside the firewall in there as well.

The SMA pulls in Tweets automatically, but if you plan on blogging you'll need to create an IBM profile or use the one you already have. From there it's simply a matter of copying and pasting a few feeds. Add any of the tags above in the body of your blog post and it will be picked up automatically to be shared with an audience of thousands. The added bonus of registering is that once you've created your profile you can contribute to any aggregator in the IBM universe.

The Hillllllllll!

IOD is is the biggest conference in the IBM software galaxy. Last year more than 10,000 said 'Viva Las Vegas' (a new record) and this year we're expecting even more. With that many people and that much technology coming into contact with each other I foresee no shortage of opinions, insights and - because this is Vegas - maybe the odd joke or two. So, I'll be keeping a close eye on the aggregator throughout the conference to highlight the trending topics, congratulate the conversation leaders and maybe - just maybe - throw in a poll or two.
The buzz is brewing for IOD11 and the SMA is your best place to participate and take it all in. Why not get started now?

The end-of-day update

I couldn't find the Frantics clip in question, so instead I can offer this cool animation. It was also made by Norman McLaren, who could make numbers dance as well as people. Enjoy!

Whoever said, “you can’t take it with you” definitely wasn’t thinking of IBM Cognos Mobile. IBM Cognos Mobile offers the same simple, easy-to-consume, reliable and secure capability of IBM Cognos Business Intelligence with the equally powerful and visual on- and off-line experience. Yes, users can view, analyze and share reports from anywhere just like they can with IBM Cognos BI only now it’s on a mobile device. Whether you’re traveling, in a meeting, away from your computer, or at home these actionable reports go with you and your device of choice which allows you to seamlessly view and interact with any report or dashboard, while providing capability for deeper analysis and much more—anywhere you happen to be. So, you can take it with you.

Sidebar: In 1936, when George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart wrote the play, You Can’t Take It With You, they had a totally different concept in mind than mobile reports. Regarding this play, which, by the way, was subsequently turned into a major motion picture of equal caliber to the play, I can only offer this simple advice: See the movie. Yes, it’s old and in black-and-white which might be a turnoff for some of you. But, still, the writing holds up so well you won’t even notice anything but yourself laughing throughout. It’s a winner. Trust me if you can. If that’s not enough the play won a Pulitzer Prize and the movie won an Academy Award for Best Picture. Pretty good endorsements there.

Okay. Back to IBM Cognos Mobile.

Another thing about IBM Cognos Mobile. Check out the location-aware technology too. It’s one of the nicest features of IBM Cognos Mobile. Imagine the possibilities with this feature as it allows you to quickly get access to the most relevant data points based on your specific location without having to search for it. It automatically brings up the location-specific information based on your physical position. Very cool. Think that if you’re in Seattle, Washington meeting with a key customer and they want to know about other customers in the area you have that ready for them. Simple. Pull up your global customer report which will quickly filter it down to only show you the local accounts. Not bad. That’s just one simple scenario and there are tons of others being utilized by IBM Cognos customers right now.

Of course, a lot of the same features you get with IBM Cognos BI you also get with IBM Cognos Mobile including Drill up and drill down, drill through, zoom in and out, and cell highlights not to mention search capability.

There are many other features to IBM Cognos Mobile but I’ll leave the demo to show you all of that. Check it out. It’s only about a minute and worth giving it a look.

How did you greet the new and improved Facebook? If you took to Facebook to complain about Facebook and demanded the old Facebook come back, you certainly weren't alone. Last Tuesday's rollout drew what could be a record amount of complaints from the site's 750 million users.

Don't blame Mark Zuckerberg, though. Blame your ancestors instead.

Our brain is a "prediction machine"

According to Huffington Post blogger Michael Taft, the reasons for this response date back millions of years, when our cave-dwelling ancestors faced a daily fight to survive:

Life evolved to gather energy resources, and the purpose of our
advanced brains is to predict availability of resources (e.g., benefits) and possible loss of energy resources (e.g., threats). If we think of the brain as a prediction machine (a reductive but useful model), it follows that the brain likes to be correct about its predictions and dislikes being incorrect. [...] Failing at prediction is actually perceived as a threat to the organism (however slightly or subconsciously), and so any surprises or unanticipated changes seem menacing.

In short: we depend on predictions to survive. Being right makes us happy. And we get awfully cranky when our predictions turn out wrong. The fact that so many people (myself included) expressed so much
frustration illustrates
just how deeply embedded Facebook has become in our daily lives.
Facebook's front page is a window on our world. Overnight, many felt
that window had been replaced with a cruel hall of mirrors.

This dynamic doesn't just apply to Facebook. Taft sees the same phenomenon in at play in the fear that often greets new ideas. It also helps explain why we derive so much pleasure from watching movies we know by heart:

Our brains are highly optimized to anticipate outcomes and feel satisfaction and joy when we are proven right. This is why we like to re-encounter favorite movies and books again and again over the years and derive pleasure from them each time.

Finding our "sweet spot"

Taft isn't recommending we rely entirely on predictable events, which would leave us incapable of responding to change of any kind. Instead, he points to a "sweet spot" of challenge and ability where we can operate at our peak powers. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi refers to it as flow:

Csiksentmihalyi defines flow as “a state in which people are so
involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the
experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at
great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.” He identifies a number of different elements involved in achieving
flow:

There are clear goals every step of the way.

There is immediate feedback to one’s actions.

There is a balance between challenges and skills.

Action and awareness are merged.

Distractions are excluded from consciousness.

There is no worry of failure.

Self-consciousness disappears.

The sense of time becomes distorted.

The activity becomes an end in itself.

The analytics-driven organization

Csikszentmihalyi is one of the pioneers of the scientific study of happiness. But to my ears this happy state of flow also sounds a lot like that of an analytics-driven organization - the kind you can build with the IBM solutions you're going to see down at Information On Demand next month in Las Vegas. In the hundreds upon hundreds of breakout sessions and EXPO demonstrations you'll see how you can add the capabilities to make your outcomes a little more predictable. You'll see how to enable your workforce to better manage the relentless pace of change. And you'll see how turning insight into action makes everyone that much happier.

How did you greet the new and improved Facebook? If you took to Facebook to complain about Facebook and demanded the old Facebook come back, you certainly weren't alone. Last Tuesday's rollout drew what could be a record amount of complaints from the site's 750 million users.

Don't blame Mark Zuckerberg, though. Blame your ancestors instead.

Our brain is a "prediction machine"

According to Huffington Post blogger Michael Taft, the reasons for this response date back millions of years, when our cave-dwelling ancestors faced a daily fight to survive:

Life evolved to gather energy resources, and the purpose of our
advanced brains is to predict availability of resources (e.g., benefits) and possible loss of energy resources (e.g., threats). If we think of the brain as a prediction machine (a reductive but useful model), it follows that the brain likes to be correct about its predictions and dislikes being incorrect. [...] Failing at prediction is actually perceived as a threat to the organism (however slightly or subconsciously), and so any surprises or unanticipated changes seem menacing.

In short: we depend on predictions to survive. Being right makes us happy. And we get awfully cranky when our predictions turn out wrong. The fact that so many people (myself included) expressed so much
frustration illustrates
just how deeply embedded Facebook has become in our daily lives.
Facebook's front page is a window on our world. Overnight, many felt
that window had been replaced with a cruel hall of mirrors.

This dynamic doesn't just apply to Facebook. Taft sees the same phenomenon in at play in the fear that often greets new ideas. It also helps explain why we derive so much pleasure from watching movies we know by heart:

Our brains are highly optimized to anticipate outcomes and feel satisfaction and joy when we are proven right. This is why we like to re-encounter favorite movies and books again and again over the years and derive pleasure from them each time.

Finding our "sweet spot"

Taft isn't recommending we rely entirely on predictable events, which would leave us incapable of responding to change of any kind. Instead, he points to a "sweet spot" of challenge and ability where we can operate at our peak powers. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi refers to it as flow:

Csiksentmihalyi defines flow as “a state in which people are so
involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the
experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at
great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.” He identifies a number of different elements involved in achieving
flow:

There are clear goals every step of the way.

There is immediate feedback to one’s actions.

There is a balance between challenges and skills.

Action and awareness are merged.

Distractions are excluded from consciousness.

There is no worry of failure.

Self-consciousness disappears.

The sense of time becomes distorted.

The activity becomes an end in itself.

The analytics-driven organization

Csikszentmihalyi is one of the pioneers of the scientific study of happiness. But to my ears this happy state of flow also sounds a lot like that of an analytics-driven organization - the kind you can build with the IBM solutions you're going to see down at Information On Demand next month in Las Vegas. In the hundreds upon hundreds of breakout sessions and EXPO demonstrations you'll see how you can add the capabilities to make your outcomes a little more predictable. You'll see how to enable your workforce to better manage the relentless pace of change. And you'll see how turning insight into action makes everyone that much happier.

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